Some relations between poetry and Cultural Psychology have been investigated in the past. Yet, the very nature of poetry and its fundamental links to Cultural Psychology remain uninvestigated. By ...outlining the essence of poetry – its rhythmic-melodic, linguistically pictorial character – I show how poetry is in deep accordance with Cultural Psychology of Semiotic Dynamics. Poetry is all about experiences and emotions; these emotive experiences explain the basic relatedness of a person towards an object and shed light onto the complex processes of sign construction. It is only while taking into account the genetic Gestalt, previous and subsequent elements within a specific rhythmic and pictorial form that we are able to unravel this specific relatedness. Different poetic texts might then treat the same object but the relatedness towards it might diverge drastically. Based on these poetic elements, I define culture as a poetic field. Referring to a fictitious example, I explain that researchers and practitioners need to take into account a person’s complex rhythmic actions, that are divided genetically into different forms to understand his/her complex experiences of the environment. Then this illuminative power of relatedness sheds light onto the dynamically complex structuring and re-structuring of culture.
In the following paper, I present the hero-villain-fool narrative construction method in order to assess hidden organizational phenomena. Psychologists can analyze organizations in two ways either by ...focusing upon formal networks (e.g. organigram) or by taking a closer look into informal networks. The present paper tries to help organizational psychologists to generate meaning making within informal networks. These informal networks are important semiotic spaces where knowledge is generated that lies in the taboo zone of talking for the formal networks. Thus, my open interview guide proposes a flexible method that can reverse the taboo zone of talking and expand the talkability zone. As a consequence, meaning making is generated that bears conflicts showing urgent – yet not fulfilled – needs within the organization. The proposed method is instanced by a microgenetic analysis of a single case study showing that the hero works as a meta-organizer for adaptive trajectories that lead into a multilateral negotiation of concrete strategies fulfilling urgent pressing needs within organizations. Limitations are made explicit such as by arguing for expanding the research design into focus groups inviting various employees and leaders to the generation of meaning making that operates between the talkability and taboo zone of talking.
In the present paper, I relate the Dialogical Self Theory with the philosophy of Taoism. For that purpose, I instance the premises of Taoism such as that human being use open ideograms (signs and ...symbols) that grow constantly in their meaning, that the meaning of life can be only unraveled if the unity of opposites is integrated in one’s worldview and that the human being listens to his natural intuition and does not force himself to do things (wuwei = effortless action which has its origins in Laozi’s TaoTeChing). When those premises are applied to the Dialogical Self Theory, psychologists can help people to develop a harmonious self because the self is operationalized as an open system that is constantly in flux of meaning. Hidden I-positions might be shifted to the foreground while helping the human being to listen to a multitude of positions and to not act in a rigid fashion. In order for scientists and practitioners to use the insights of what I call the Dialogical Self of Taoistic Dynamics, I propose an open interview guide that could help people to realize their harmonious pluralistic self.
In the present article, I dissect key elements of Hermann Hesse’s famous novel, the Glass Bead Game (Glasperlenspiel) in order to make them fertile for Cultural Psychology. I originate from the idea ...that the Glass Bead Game can be understood as a universal language that relies on open ideographs, thus signs that can be combined and structured for multiple purposes. Yet, this universal language is not solely a play; it has an educational drive to educate the mind and to help the individual reaching inner harmony. This play comes into being only when listening to the play of other people interacting with me and me meditating upon the multiple meaning making opportunities of it. I argue that such a perspective is in close accordance with the actual task of Cultural Psychology helping to unravel how people do relate to their environments and the impact that results from this ecological interaction. However, I appeal interested readers in trying to better institutionalize such a cultural psychological purpose of serving the individual in order for Cultural Psychology to be a sustainable and long-lasting science unlike the Glass Bead Game that became an end in itself.
The present article is a psychogram about Marion Gräfin Dönhoff. I am deciphering the life of the countess on the basis of Boesch’s symbolic action theory. By the psychogram I am exploring the action ...field (needs and goals) of Dönhoff that I argue can only be understood while drawing on her relation to her socio-cultural environment. Born in a noble family in Königsberg – in a castle – she is a child of a highly politicized family with a moral ethos. Very early on she comes in contact with the general history or the history of her family both intertwined one with the other, goes to Frankfurt for her studies in the 1930ies, completes her dissertation in Basel (1936), leads castle Friedrichstein economically in the 1940ies, joins the inner-German resistance, flees from castle Friedrichstein in 1944 and becomes a journalist in the post-war decade in Germany. I argue that Dönhoff was exposed to specific cultural life-patterns catalyzing the ground-theme of her life, the political, practical and social involvement with the people’s lives which helps them to preserve meaning. By the notion of interrelated action fields – directed towards a common ground-theme – I am also proposing an extension of Boeschian Cultural Psychology.
The paper is a novel extension of the Dialogical Self Theory (DST) to organizational psychology. In organizations there are rich conflicts and ambiguous situations in which joint meaning making is ...indispensable for future trajectories of the follower, the leader and the organization itself. This negotiation process is influenced by power imbalances within the organization, mostly between leader and follower. In their multiple emerging fields and their interrelatedness these agents have to find a way of neutralizing the tension of highly ambiguous situations in order to account for the discovery of commonly adaptive, future trajectories. I introduce the concept of the Existential-Humanistic Leadership style (EHL) that through the emergence of existential I-positions and sign-manifolds neutralizes previous power imbalances. The Trajectory Equifinality Approach (TEA) of Tatsuya Sato is used for elaboration of the ongoing dialogical processes. The TEA-modelling shows that an existential-humanistic leader tries to unite opposite trajectories within one dynamically adaptive system through phenomenological/democratic attunement towards the follower and through the assessment of follower’s needs for development. These two conditions of EHL make it more likely that a leader externalizes existential I-positions which create local sign-worlds where leader and follower meet as human beings in absence of prior role asymmetry. Central concepts of existential psychology, DST and cultural semiosis are combined in a microgenetic and phenomenological research design. Based on the partnership model of Valsiner, Bibace, & LaPushin, a co-constructive interview guide has been created, in which a scenario-completion task is established and worked through with the participant. The Trajectory Equifinality Model of a football trainer is used for generalization of the generic structure of an existential-humanistic leader-system being a crucial condition for leading in and through curvilinearity.
In the present paper I investigate the phenomenon of mindfulness from a cultural-psychological perspective. During the past years mindfulness has been primarily treated as an independent ...(intervention) variable trying to evidence its effectiveness in relation to psychotherapy as well as to specific work outcomes such as a decrease in stress symptoms at work. Yet, what has been rather missing within the literature is the analysis of mindfulness from a theoretical and historical perspective. Arguing with E.E. Boesch, I show based on an autoethnography that the need for mindfulness emerges when there are conflicts with one’s fantasms (private needs, goals, wants, wishes) or with a specific myth in one’s community (you should work hard in order to become a good citizen). I conclude with the findings that mindfulness has the power to alter one’s fantasms hierachy as well as the stance towards a specific myth in one’s community. This is further evidenced by analyzing the glass bead game of H. Hesse and which role mindfulness plays in there – a transformative role for individuals and groups.
Leadership is inherently social. Being grounded in the Lewinian framework of field theory, I am instancing the diverse understanding of social leadership: Uncertainty reduction, making choices, ...assuming responsibility, and contributing to an orchestral interplay between followers are important functions of social leadership. But this is not sufficient. Organizations are built by concrete agents with concrete needs and overreaching goals. These needs and goals structure the environment (personal culture) of various employees including the leader. Drawing on an empirical case from a bakery as well as on Lewinian cases from the past, I am showing how group atmosphere alone is not able to cover the full range of the follower’s reactions: Here, we need to rely on basic concepts of culture: Employees live and work in their related life spaces. Complexity arises in organizations if the goal pursuit between followers themselves is contradictory, thus if their life spaces are a barrier for each other. The leader needs to realize here that this is not a disadvantage; his role is neither to solve these contradictions nor to present a potential solution. The leader needs to emphasize the interdependence of his followers; s/he can do so by letting them experience the issues and difficulties of the social other encountered in their respective life spaces. Here, followers are getting a glimpse into the life space (personal culture) of a colleague. Such border experiences play a key role for the following democratic exchange of how two previously contradictory life spaces are turned into conciliatory ones.
The present article is a book review essay about James T. Lamiell's Primer in Critical Personalism: A Framework for Reviving Psychological Inquiry and for Grounding a Socio-cultural Ethos published ...in February 2024. In the beginning of the paper, I am outlining the core tenets of the book that is its separation into two major sections. In the first, Lamiell shows us the origins of psychological research in Germany in the laboratory of Wilhelm Wundt in Leipzig and his peculiar notion of generalizing knowledge. Here, the American psychologist explains that Wundt and his assistants were far away of generalizing knowledge in the way mainstream psychology does today - that is on an aggregate, population-based knowledge. On the contrary, Wundt and his colleagues were generalizing knowledge more in a systemic manner - something which is also in line with the work of William Stern and his critical personalism. Lamiell applies the core tenets of critical personology - that originate in the notion of the adoption of self-purposes (values) which become then linked to foreign purposes/values and produces something higher over the course of that process. Lamiell expands this successfully to the domain of informal focus groups discussing racial issues and how psycho-demographic research comes to fixate individuals into categories that do not apply to the individual level. As such, the American psychologist accomplishes to show that inferential statistics is not only scientifically unsound for many research questions but that it also comes with moral and ethical concerns that should be addressed by scientists. At the end of the book review essay, I point out several pathways of future research - that is the link between critical personalism, phenomenology, existentialism and psychoanalysis as well as how Lamiell would construct and co-construct concrete interventions to facilitate introception to take place in his informal focus groups. I conclude the article by stressing the major highlight of Lamiell's book - that is the interpersonal benefits of adopting a critical personological perspective in science and in life.
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